Quick Guide: The Intelligence Cycle

What is the intelligence cycle?

Intelligence is conducted in order to answer questions, it isn’t done at random, clutching at any available information and hoping that some of it falls together in a useful way. To produce actionable results, we must be systematic in our approach to conducting intelligence.

The intelligence cycle helps guide our intelligence process, from asking the question through to the delivery of a product. Every step is laid out in this cycle. The means with which you might accomplish some of the steps can be novel and creative, but the cycle is the guideline that holds everybody in it accountable for their role. It looks like this:

The Intelligence Cycle

You might hear the intelligence cycle referred to as the DCPD cycle, referring the initials of each stage.

The intelligence cycle is broken down into the four stages that you should be working through, each of those, as shown by the centre circle, are guided by ongoing communication and feedback. This feedback can come from the customer, peers, or other organisations/teams. It signifies that intelligence product development is a conversation, it is not done in isolation. A product isn’t just put together; it grows through an evolution of raw information to cohered intelligence.

Direction

Direction is the first stage of the cycle; it can be broken down into two different categories:

External direction: this is from outside of your team or organisation. It outlines what the question is and the effect that you are trying to achieve. It is usually from the customer or somebody representing the customer.

Internal direction: direction from within your team or organisation, this kind of direction is generally given on how to achieve the task from the external direction. This might be from your line manager or your team lead and is more often to do with the granular details.

Collection

Collection is where the intelligence really starts, this is where you gather the information you need in order to be able to process that into a final product. This is where disciplines start to come into it as well (i.e. OSINT, HUMINT, ELINT…) The collect should, generally, be guided by an Intelligence Collection Plan (ICP). The ICP dictates what data and information you want to gather, how you are going to achieve collection, and what disciplines and functions you are going to assign to each part of the question. And often outlines any limitations you expect to face when answering the question.

Processing

Processing is a multi-stage process whereby you turn the information you have collected into intelligence. This is done through a series of structured techniques. Although this is called the processing phase, the first three fall strictly under the processing definition, the final three fall under the banner of analysis. They are as follows:

Collation: Within your collection you will have (hopefully) gathered and abundance of information. Collation is where you start looking at the questions you have been asked to answer and comparing them with the information gathered to see which bits of it will help to answer what question.

Interpretation: Once you have collated the information, start going through it line by line and seeing what you can extract from it. How does it link together? [RA4] What context does that give you? How does it fit in with what you already know? Does it challenge what you already know? Does it supersede what you know to be true?

Evaluation: Not all information is created equal. Sources will have biases, half the story, ulterior motives; not every source wants to give you the full picture or has the full picture to give you. There are different ways to do this, depending on preference, end goal, organisation etc. One of the most used is a grading system of reliability of source against credibility of information (shown in the table below). One important note is that this is an ongoing process, sources change over time, your knowledge changes over time and sources should be under constant evaluation.

Reliability of source		Credibility of information
A	Completely reliable	1	Completely credible
B	Usually reliable	2	Probably true
C	Fairly reliable	3	Possibly true
D	Not usually reliable	4	Doubtful
E	Unreliable	5	Improbable
F	Reliability unknown	6	Credibility unknown

Integration: This is the backbone of the process. Where interpretation is looking at individual pieces of information you have gathered and drawing some context out of them, this is looking at all of that together. Now they are grouped, this is where you build the story. What does the interpreted data tell you? What can you draw from it? Really look here to get some useful context. You should be looking for patterns and links. You are aiming to draw out as much insight as you can.

Assessment: ask yourself a question, “So what?”. This is arguably the most important role of the analyst. If you tell me all the information up until now and I go “Okay and…?”, what is it that you really want me to take away from it all? Remember that your audience won’t have every bit of information you have, this is what they are interested in hearing.

Production: this falls between the processing and the dissemination phases. Once you have arrived at this point,[RA6]  you need to find a way to present your findings. Are you going to put them [RA7] in a written report? An Email? A PowerPoint? This is a simple stage; however, it is important not to rush it. A lot of what people take away from this is based on your production. If it is well written and easy to follow, or briefed confidently, the audience is going to take away much more than if it is poorly written and briefed by somebody who doesn’t inspire confidence and competence. Detail is important here too. Headings moving between slides, ugly fonts, inconsistent colours - all of that distracts people from the key points.

Dissemination

Finally, we have the dissemination phase. Here you need to make sure the right people get the right information at the right time. Make sure it goes to the customer. Include any other interested stakeholders. Make sure it is stored correctly, somewhere easy to find in the future by you and others. Also, depending on the nature of what you are writing, remember to be security conscious – only send it to people who are allowed to see it.

Conclusion

The intelligence cycle is an integral part of analysis and intelligence. It is also transferable. As with most techniques and structures we use, it is common sense written down on paper; it’s how you would naturally go through the motions. Use it as a handrail and you will be able to produce reports that people want to read and will gain value from.